Ex minister calls for four-year post-study work visa

The combined impact of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic on international student applications to the United Kingdom poses an “existential threat” to universities young and old and the government should respond with a bold international education strategy aimed at shoring up the UK’s position as the number two destination in the world, Jo Johnson, former universities minister and brother of the current prime minister, has warned.

To this end, the government should introduce a four-year post-study work visa, double the number of international students coming from India, create a global alternative mobility network to the European Union’s staff and student study and exchange scheme Erasmus+, and transform the endangered British Council into a body focused on promoting international study in the UK, Johnson says.

“Governments and university leaders are preparing for a potential drop in international students of 50%-75% that would represent a significant reversal for one of the great boom businesses of the globalised economy,” Johnson says, referring to the likely intake this September.

“Any decline of this magnitude would expose real vulnerabilities in university finances and highlight the way universities have been the victim of competing and conflicting government policy objectives in Westminster over much of the last decade.”

The analysis and recommendations are made in a 50-page report titled Universities Open to the World: How to put the bounce back in Global Britain, written by Johnson and published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and the Policy Institute of King’s College London.

Johnson says UK governments have long required universities to develop additional revenue streams to cross-subsidise research, which loses 25p in the pound, and the teaching of certain strategically significant laboratory and studio-based subjects that cost more to deliver than the £9,250 (US$11,500) fees paid by domestic students.

“They have recognised that, far from squeezing out qualified domestic students, overseas students have made viable courses and research opportunities that would otherwise not be offered.”

But for much of the past decade the government has run “contradictory policies aimed both at increasing education exports, while at the same time managing down international student numbers in a misguided attempt to reduce overall net migration to below 100,000,” he says.

As a result, the UK’s market share declined in 17 out of the world’s top 21 sending countries between 2010 and 2017, with falls of over 30% in Nigeria and at least 15% in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, he argues.

The United States, UK and Australia are the top study destinations globally, but UK international student numbers have in recent years been flat, rising, for example, by just 0.3% in 2016 and only 0.9% in 2017.

Even before the pandemic, the UK had been losing market share in part due to its hostile environment for immigrants developed from 2013 under Theresa May’s tenure at the Home Office and maintained during her premiership – which led Canadian bloggers to dub her ‘Agent May’ because of the benign impact it was having on recruitment in Canada as an alternative.

Risk of steep decline from Brexit

Other factors affecting international student numbers include Brexit, which has already exposed universities to the risk of a steep decline in EU students. The UK had become the most popular destination for European students, who made up a third of the international student body and drove much of the growth in international students over the past five years (increasing by 9% compared to 3% for other international students).

As and when the government decides to deregulate fees for EU students and to withdraw access to government financing, there is expected to be a sharp overall reduction in demand for UK higher education from the 27 remaining member states, Johnson says.

Then there is the impact of the pandemic, which has brought an economic shock worse than the 2008 global financial crisis, and has forced a short-term closure of international travel. ‘Pre-1992 universities’ receive the majority of their tuition fees from international students (between 51% and 58%).

Post-pandemic, the already intense competition for international students will deepen significantly.

For instance, China, for long the biggest source of international students, is now “on the verge of becoming a global superpower in higher education in its own right, deploying the full weight of its government and economy in support of its own soft power objectives”, Johnson says.

‘Best in the world’ study visas needed

He says if the UK is to protect one of the few industries in which it still leads the world, it must take a number of steps to be first out of the blocks.

“These include a study visa that matches the best in the world, with four years’ post-study work, the transformation of the British Council into a body focused on promotion of study in the UK, and a strategic push to rebalance student flows by doubling those from India within the lifetime of this parliament.”

The drive for Indian students is needed, he said, to “rebalance the mix” of international students coming to the UK, which relies heavily on Chinese students.

Johnson calls for an end to “hostile bureaucracy”, urging the Home Office – whose reputation has been shredded by the 2018 Windrush Scandal in which many British citizens of Caribbean decent have been wrongly accused of illegal entry after decades of living in the country and have been wrongly sacked, detained or deported, with many forced into a life of destitution as a result – to increase flexibility on English proficiency testing and Tier 4 visa issuance and hold universities to account for any non-compliance.

This echoes the demand by Universities UK in recent weeks that the government take action to address the current crisis by ensuring the visa system allows for flexible and blended approaches to teaching this autumn, which will be necessary in order to maintain social distancing and safety on campuses.

Universities UK wants the rules adjusted allowing Tier 4 students to study partially online, to allow for the blended approach being planned by universities. It also wants reassurance that online study will not disqualify students from the new Graduate Route – which gives students post-study working opportunities in the UK – to be introduced in 2021, and for assurance that students can start courses online with confidence by extending the visa application window from three months to six months.

Making education exports central to trade strategy

Johnson has also demanded that education exports be made central to the UK’s post-Brexit trade strategy, so that the UK government prioritises liberalisation of trade and cooperation in research and education in each of its prospective free trade agreements.

And he wants a recommitment to the target set in 2019 of increasing international student numbers by 30% to 600,000 by 2030, with a requirement that the new ‘international education champion’, Professor Sir Steve Smith, who was appointed on 5 June, report to parliament on progress annually.

Johnson was universities minister twice, from 2015 to 2018 under Theresa May’s government, and from July to September 2019 under his brother’s premiership. He resigned from May’s government to be free to back a referendum on Brexit and stood down as an MP in September 2018 because he was “torn between family and national interest”, a thinly veiled reference to his disagreement with his brother’s push for a hard Brexit.

Question mark over Erasmus+

His highlighting of the question mark over the future of Erasmus+ will worry many universities.

The future of the UK’s membership of Erasmus+, the EU’s flagship study abroad programme, is yet to be decided formally and is not a priority in the Brexit negotiations. The prime minister has previously said the UK will continue to participate. But a Whitehall source has told University World News that while the government is very keen to buy into Horizon Europe, the EU’s research programme, it is lukewarm about participating in Erasmus+.

The lukewarm approach is reflected in UK Universities Minister Michelle Donelan’s statement in March that the UK remains open to participation in “elements of Erasmus+ on a time limited basis” and only if certain conditions are met, which is unlikely to be welcomed by the EU.

Jo Johnson says: “If the UK does end up leaving Erasmus, EU students on the programme, who contribute about £420 million to economic activity in the UK during their studies, will no longer be eligible for grants to come to the UK.

“There may be other ways that EU (and other) countries can fund inbound mobility to the UK, potentially as part of a broader and more global student mobility scheme that the UK might seek to create in its place, but these flows of EU Erasmus students will drop off sharply, at least in the short term.”

Global mobility programme

Johnson urges the government to take the opportunity to construct a new, global student mobility programme, building on the same principles as the Erasmus+ scheme but open to participation from students around the world, EU and non-EU alike.

He says the British Council’s existing network (as the national agency for Erasmus+) and global reach makes it the right public body to build and operate this scheme.

In his report Johnson uses some of the data produced by Dr Janet Ilieva, founder of Education Insight, and Vivienne Stern, director of Universities UK International, to highlight the scale of the challenges faced to make UK international education competitive again around the world.

Commenting on the new paper, Ilieva said: “This is an excellent analysis of the UK’s competitive positioning in the international student market place. It accurately captures the importance of supportive student visas, the lack of which were critical deterrents for global mobility to the UK over the past decade.

“Government-wide support for the new newly proposed policy measures is essential if the UK is to regain lost market share. Many of the recommendations rightly focus on supportive and flexible student visa packages, post-study work visas and easing the travel restrictions for international students.

“But while the government’s international education strategy is export-focused, there is an opportunity for the UK to retain global leadership in international education while making a bold statement about its contribution to sustainable development through higher education partnerships, research collaborations and transnational education.”